vacation traffic. d.c. metro has the second worst gridlock in the nation. joining us from along the beltway, john townsend. good morning. >> good morning. >> i guess we can be glad we don't have the worst. >> we have the second worst. look at this on 95 and 495. the concourse of 95 and 495, absolute gridlock. this will take almost 45 minutes to untangle and if you're here and you don't see or hear us, your stuck in absolute gridlock. >> how much can we blame on this terrible traffic tuesday, back to school and back to work, as opposed to any other tuesday this time of year? >> well if you live in this area, you know it's been a bad summer. especially in summer with all of the construction going on. but now this is ground zero because everyone comes back to work, everybody is back from vacation and all of the school systems are operational today and that explains this next us of gridlock that we see here today and will feel throughout the area. think about this, there are 3 million workers in our area, 1.5 million of them will drive to work alone. 500,000 people on metro. and you have to inc